Guides
The basics of reading one chart and comparing two, in the order most people find useful.
Start here
- What synastry isSynastry compares two whole birth charts, planet by planet. Here’s what it looks at, what it leaves out, and how to take it.
- Sun, Moon and RisingThe three placements astrologers call the Big 3, what each one covers, how they disagree with each other, and why profiles show all three.
- How to read a synastry chartA practical order for reading a synastry chart: start with the tightest aspects, then the personal planets, then look for patterns.
- Harmonious, challenging and dynamic aspectsWhat the labels in a MatchMachine report mean, which angles count as which, and why challenging doesn’t mean bad.
- Why charts can’t predict a relationshipWhat synastry can honestly offer, and what it can’t. Why a score is a prompt and not a verdict, and how we think about astrology at MatchMachine.
Reading one chart
- Why Rising needs a birth timeYour Rising sign changes about every two hours, so a birthday alone can’t find it. What a missing birth time changes, and what still works.
- Elements and modalitiesFire, earth, air and water, and cardinal, fixed and mutable. How twelve signs come from two simple sorts, and what it tells you when you compare two people.
- Your dominant planetSome planets speak louder in a chart than others. What makes one dominant, what each tends to bring out, and how ‘Your strongest force’ works in the app.
- Your dominant elementMost charts lean toward one or two elements. How to count yours, what it’s like when one dominates, and what a low element means, without the worry.
- Essential dignityWhy some signs suit a planet and others ask more of it. Home, exaltation, detriment and fall explained plainly, and how the app uses them.
- Retrogrades in a birth chartWhat retrograde means, why so many people were born with one, what astrologers read into it, and what the app does and doesn’t do with retrogrades.
- Astrology glossaryPlain definitions for the astrology terms you’re likely to meet, from Ascendant to synastry, with a note on which ones MatchMachine actually uses.
Going further
- What a transit isA transit is a planet moving through the sky today, reaching a point in your birth chart. How long they last, what the app shows, and how to take them.
- Reading the dynamics between two peoplePast the score: how to tell from a synastry chart who tends to lead, who soothes, where the spark and the friction are, and how to talk about it.
- Birth order and relationshipsWhy people bring up birth order on dates, what research says, and how to use it as a conversation. The app doesn’t use it in compatibility scores.